Memorial statue stolen in '05 found

Steve Schmadeke, Tribune reporterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Three years after thieves made off with a 400-pound memorial statue that stood outside the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, the bronze figure has been recovered intact on a Grundy County farm.

The 6-foot statue was built to honor 48 men killed in an explosion in World War II at a munitions factory on what is now part of the cemetery, where more than 15,000 veterans are buried. The statue vanished in July 2005, four years after being erected.

One of two bolts holding the Joliet Ammunition Plant worker had been cut and the other sheared to take the figure from its 3-foot-tall granite base, on which names of the dead workers are inscribed.

The June 5, 1942, explosion at what was then called the Elwood Ordnance Plant occurred in a building where anti-tank mine fuses were being assembled.

Elmo Ray Younger, 86, chaired the committee that raised money for the first statue and another $30,000, given by a single anonymous donor, for the second statue that stands there now. He said he was stunned to get a call from Elwood police Sunday saying the statue was found near Braceville, Ill.